This is a Full Metal Alchemist and Rising of the Shield Hero Fanfiction only.

The one universal truth, the fact that is the same no matter where you are in this, gossip travels fast. I don't even have to ask what the so-called cardinal heroes are up to when simply by walking around Lute or eating a meal I get an ear-full. From what the people around me say I learned quite a few things.

I learned that the three heroes have no clue how to actually do anything or anything that makes sense to the people around them. They go around trying to find the meanest, ugliest, and aggressive creatures they can and from the way status magic has shown me what each part of these so-called status mean, they are trying to maximize their experience so they gain levels.

Well, that might sound wise as a civilian, but an officer like myself know better, what wins the day is not only physical strength but knowledge. Knowledge can make the difference between victory and an early grave, I have seen it several times. It is always these reckless and greedy state alchemist who end up in a grave sooner than those that think things through.

The fact that I am trying to learn everything I can, prepare for every conceivable situation by stockpiling medicines and other necessities for battle and for the situations after. Uncle Ed used to say it is when you let your guard down when you least expect it that the brown stuff will hit the fan.

To even have the right to train in Alchemy I spent a month on an island, no boat, no supplies, surviving with just my wits and a dull knife I put together from scraps I found in the island. This island also had this bear pelt, mask-wearing lunatic that kept making my life a living hell by either destroying my resting place or stealing my food.

I had to figure things out, to anticipate when will my enemy attack, to plan a counterattack, to make traps and try to capture the nutcase who was making my life so hard. It was near the end of the month until I realized that everything deep down was made of the same thing, we are all a collection of atoms interacting with each other.

This is what first let me understand the mechanics of transmutation and why the limitations were put in place. I have gotten pretty good at making medicine and Raphtalia and I also have gotten pretty good at fighting together, all in all, I guess while we still have things to do, I also can say that thank goodness the people in Melromarc don't know some of the medicines that are keeping them alive are made by me.

That cult has a rather large following, enough that they stopped being called a cult and are actually became a state religion. I still have to figure out a means to get to Shieldfreeden at some point, this status magic seems to contain quite a bit of helpful information and one little bit is that class ups can only be done at the dragon hourglass, and the only dragon hourglass is in the custody of the church.

Well apparently Myne, really is trying to make I think she really wants to be in a serious relationship with me, she has been visiting Lute ever since that failed attempt to tarnish my good reputation by her father, a few people told me that she even asked where I live, too bad for her since I don't think anyone in Lute would tell her where my home is.

The more like I spend in this world the more it made me think I should come up with a way to keep my research secure, I know of shadows, I know they exist, and who they are supposed to work for, but if they exist to work for the royal family that can be good and bad. The good part is Mire will know what is happening in her country.

The bad thing is that the King could use them for his own plans, and by extension so could the church. So I decided that if I ever write down anything down, it would be in a cipher, a cipher only a state alchemist would know. It was a way to write something down that to everyone else looks like a diary, but in reality, it was a way to keep research safe.

I don't like the fact that the method was primarily used by people like the infamous Shou Tucker, the man made his wife and daughters into monsters, guess it came back to bite him in the end according to Uncle Ed since he was later made a monster himself. Come to think of it, many of the monsters I killed sort of remind me of what that sick man once did.

A chimera, the perverse combining of two life forms into a new one. Only people who don't value or respect life at all would consider doing something so horrible. The poor creature is believed to be in constant pain, that would explain the aggression from the monsters we fought.

Could it be that the person who is causing these monsters to appear during each wave know alchemy? No, that can not be, the main principle of an alchemist is Alchemist be thou for the people. It is the core of our philosophy, the first rule of our ethics. Uncle Ed learned it from his master, and she learned it from him, going back to countless generations.

"Is everything alright Master?" I looked at Raphtalia and could not help but to smile, she is so precious being concerned about me, I touched her hair and tried to make her feel at ease, come to think of it, her hair is getting pretty long. I guess I found out what I am going to do today.

I am going to brush, clean and cut Raphtalia's hair. Long hair may seem like something cute on a girl like her, but long hair can be a bad thing when fighting like we are going to fight in the coming wave.

"Raphtalia, come here. I don't think you feel comfortable with such long hair. I need to take care of your hair before the waves come, we simply will not have enough time after. We will have to help people and probably treat quite a few injured people."

She looked at me and then looked at the floor for some odd reason, "Yes, Master, I will do as you say. I am your sword, from now till the end of time I shall always do my best to stand by you." That is an awfully strange thing to say to me. I asked her to put something on her hair and wait a little bit.

I began to rub her hair and tried to make sure the stuff I made worked through her hair, it was long and in such a mess, I had to use both my hands to really massage the stuff into her hair and scalp. These people don't even know of the many parasites that can live in hair, I will not let these disease-carrying vermin to make a meal out of her.

As I waited for the shampoo, conditioner and other things to do their work, I began to prepare a bucket of water, used my alchemy to raise the temperature to make sure anything in it would die, and the water was as pure as I could make it without something akin to a filter.

I used the water on her head and began to wash out all the things that I put in her hair, and began to brush it, I have to be gentle, this is a girl and as such she is much more sensitive than I am. Strange thing somewhat distracted by me combing and drying her hair, I used alchemy to heat the air around my hands which allowed me to dry her hair more efficiently.

As soon as I got done cleaning without even telling her what I would do, I began to use my makeshift scissors, I cut her hair short but I made certain to at least make her hair look like she was a lady, I did my best to style her hair in a way that she also retained her cute appeal. I will never be able to thank Aunt Winry for her teaching me about hairstyles and how to cut hair.

I used to complain that such stuff was in a word girly and that I would never need it, I ended up learning as a dare, and here I am in another world proven wrong yet again, my Aunt was right, all the things she taught me are things I would need, and I was a foolish punk for putting my Aunt through all that and all due to my arrogance. I was a lousy student to her, I wish I could apologize but that is clearly not going to happen.

I guess I was not too careful and ended up having some of her hair fall on my shield core, and it was absorbed by it, imagine my surprise when I find that her hair unlocked several shield abilities under a new shield. Well since this happened why waste it, I picked up every strand of hair that was on my clothes or the floor and fed it to my shield.

I don't know if this is normal or just for me, but as soon as I was finished doing that, the shield that her hair unlocked showed the status of being mastered. I know that mastering abilities take time and practice but to have an ability go from something I recently acquired to master in a single day, in a few hours was shocking to me.

This made me worry for several reasons, if this happens to all the heroes, then it means that the other three heroes might be gaining abilities and believe they are so easy that they are mastering them at such a fast rate. They are punks, if that happens it will absolutely go to their heads and think themselves all powerful.

We don't need that, we need people that are disciplined and know the limitations to each ability, if they meet a truly dangerous enemy they will think they can beat it, but if they don't know the actual limitations of their own abilities, they will be fighting an enemy that does and fights accordingly it will be a one-sided battle, and not in their favor.

The fact that the three heroes cult is a national religion also tells me that if these idiots think themselves gods this would only reinforce that idiotic belief, these idiots probably have no clue how dangerous flame alchemy is. If they master abilities this fast, they might even challenge me thinking how can a mere devil stand against a god.

It will be an absolute pain to try and restrain myself should that happen, if they challenge me to a duel, it will take every once of my self-discipline and will to keep from incinerating the fool that dared to challenge me. As a state alchemist, I have sent battalions of pirates, thieves and other criminal scum to the afterlife. I have been known in my military career to send a pirate frigate to the bottom of the sea in pieces with just a snap of my fingers.

These three punks have no idea who I am and that worries me because I also know that all four heroes are needed to save this world, it is not by chance or by mere poetic license that four are summoned, they are four because they are meant to protect the four corners of the world.

These heroes are supposed to fight against the enemies that would want to consume this world instead they are off doing things to expand the strength of these so-called legendary weapons. From all the rumors I hear maybe I am being unfair, I did hear that they are at least trying to do something for the people of this nation.

My memories did show me that they are probably doing it to unlock abilities, money, and fame.

The memories in the shield are truly don't feel like they are from someone else, they do feel like they are my memories, I even can feel like I do think like that, is this true or did I lose who I am because this shield is changing who I am?

"Thank you for the haircut Master Mustang, I feel so much better. The only thing I will miss is you combing my hair. It feels so good when you do that. I feel like all my stress and worries simply melt away."

I guess I was so focused on what I was thinking that I simply kept combing her hair. I wish I could ask mom if all girls feel like that when a man brushes their hair? The thing is some of these shields if not most of these shields offer little more than physical attribute increases, increases in non-combat abilities, gathering, and efficiency of skills or items.

Alright my Alchemy shield does improve my combat abilities, probably could upgrade it to the next rank if I need it my pocket watch or my gloves, but so far I see no reason to do that. Raphtalia is a little kid, right? So why is she giving this strange look? If she was an adult woman I would find it rather flattering but from her?

Thanks to my memories and being able to read I kept finding more and more recipes for different medicines, the guy at the Apothecary still is lending me books, and he seems to really be impressed with the medicines I produce.

Each time I make a new one, I grab about six or seven of them and feed them to my shield. Somehow this unlocks different shields, mostly dealing with efficiency or debilitating conditions to no longer affect me, and because of the slave user shield, any negative status I become immune to Raphtalia gains an immunity as well.

The only bad thing is if I keep unlocking or gaining more combiner or medicine production increases, meaning if I keep getting better at making medicines, I sure hope the guy I sell my medicines to does not have like six or more daughters, cause I really don't want to be chased around by them if he ever thinks I would make a welcome addition to his family.

I mean I am already embarrassed enough having him sing my praises every time the analysis one of my new medicines or checks the quality of the medicine I prepare to sell. I keep telling him not to tell people I made them, and he seems to understand for the most part. If people knew that the person they believe to be the devil made a medicine, I think some of these idiots would rather drop dead that touch anything that I made.

I really hate that stupid cult though, I mean one of their teachings aside that I am evil incarnate, is to discriminate and treat demihumans badly. What kind of monster would want to cause someone as cute, adorable and kind like Raphtalia pain for their sick enjoyment? Discipline sure, I understand sometimes it is a necessity, but as a means of entertainment that is sick.

The fact that I need to use the dragon hourglass to grow in levels once I reach a certain limit makes this cult also an actual thorn on my side. If I was the king I would probably have each and every priest of this cult promptly executed, in the most painful manner possible, then have any records of their existence erased. Which kind of explains why they hate my guts so much or is that I hate them just as much?

I am no teenager, I know that they needed someone to demonize, well if that was the case I got a few choice names they could have picked, alright, alright, I get it, stop thinking of ways to demonize the King and focus. You can't exactly say he doesn't deserve it.

To think that this sexist jerk slept with Mire no less than two times and had his children is enough to make me angry, the more I remember the more I realize the real reason he summoned all four of us here. Why didn't I see it before, the idiot was not a member of the royal family or any royal family.

He was born the son of a noble, a low status noble, he pretty much needed to marry Mire since she was the crown princess back then, I, of course, would never allow such a thing to happen, let's face it we been dating for over two years when this creep finally decided to introduce himself to her.

So that means that at some point, I was killed by the idiot, and my soul was reborn in that other world since I am the Shield Hero, the second he summoned all four heroes, I got summoned too. This brings an interesting idea and problem if I am regaining memories from a past life through memories stored in my shield, does that mean the other three are also remembering things from theirs?

That can't be right as far as I recall the person that is the Sword Hero always was a good friend of mine, The previous Bow hero was like my little brother, dependable to a fault, and of course not much has changed with the Spear Hero, still as impulsive and naive as ever.

Well after my trip down regressed memory lane I finished dinner and was ready to clean the pots and pans by the time Raphtalia finally decided to help me set the table. "This looks great Master Mustang, can't wait to dig in." I touched her hand that was holding her spoon and looked at her.

"First things first young lady, did you wash your hands?" She smiled and told me yes. I guess that is always nice to hear. I sat down and began to fill her bowel with the casserole I made, it was a simple matter to transmute vegetables into ones I knew and needed, it was an old recipe, Potato Stew. I could probably make Beef Stew but a young lady like her needs a balanced diet.